EFF – “A Victory for Privacy and Transparency: HRW v. DEA – In a victory for millions of people in the U.S. who have placed telephone calls to locations overseas, EFF and Human Rights Watch have confirmed that the Drug Enforcement Administration’s practice of collecting those records in bulk has stopped and that the only… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Courts
Details of NSA use of NSL to obtain ISP data released
ArsTechnica – “For the first time, as part of a First Amendment lawsuit, a federal judge ordered the release of what the FBI was seeking from a small ISP as part of an NSL. Among other things, the FBI was demanding a target’s complete Web browsing history, IP addresses of everyone a person has corresponded… Continue Reading
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 2016 ePub
From Sarah Glassmeyer – “The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure just had a ton of revisions come into effect on December 1. Since the US Courts only publish this in a 170 page PDF, I thought I’d make it a little more user friendly and make an ebook (by which I mean an ePub, compatible… Continue Reading
Federal Court Lifts Gag Order on National Security Letter Recipient
EPIC – “For the first time, a federal court has lifted a national security letter gag order, allowing an Internet Service Provider to publish the FBI’s demands for records of user web browsing history, IP addresses, online purchases, and location information. The FBI issues thousands of NSLs each year, forcing companies to disclose troves of… Continue Reading
ODNI Announces Transition to New Telephone Metadata Program
News release: “Beginning Sunday, November 29, the government is prohibited from collecting telephone metadata records in bulk under Section 215, including of both U.S. and non-U.S. persons. And, while under the prior program NSA collected metadata in bulk and sought court approval for individual queries, the USA FREEDOM Act requires that the government must now… Continue Reading
Drug Offenders in Federal Prisons: Estimates of Characteristics Based on Linked Data
“More than half (54 percent) of drug offenders in federal custody at yearend 2012 were serving sentences for powder or crack cocaine, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported in a study released today. Methamphetamine offenders (24 percent) accounted for the next largest share of drug offenders, followed by marijuana (12 percent) and heroin (6… Continue Reading
Essay recommends thirteen new signals for The Bluebook’s next edition
Roark, Marc Lane and Emerson, Warren, Signals (November 10, 2015). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2688685 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2688685 ”Currently, The Bluebook recommends twelve signals that give direction to the author’s intended use of sources. Bluebook signals communicate how the author believes the work cited is relevant to the proposition. But Bluebook signals could communicate so much more.… Continue Reading
GAO Reports – DOJ Civil Rights Division, IRS Financial Audit, VA Benefits
DOJ Civil Rights Division Travel: Division Strengthened Controls over Travel, but Additional Areas for Improvement Identified, GAO-16-58: Published: Nov 12, 2015. Publicly Released: Nov 12, 2015. “GAO tested the implementation of internal controls and compliance with key policies in nine areas of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division (Division) travel authorization and reimbursement… Continue Reading
Mapping Attempts to Craft an Internet Bill of Rights
Towards Digital Constitutionalism? Mapping Attempts to Craft an Internet Bill of Rights. Lex Gil, Dennis Redeker, Urs Gasser. November 9, 2015. Available for download via SSRN. “The idea of an “Internet Bill of Rights” is by no means a new one: in fact, serious efforts to draft such a document can be traced at least… Continue Reading
GAO Reports – Federal Judiciary, OFS Audit, Foster Care
Federal Judiciary: Improved Cost Savings Estimates Could Help Better Assess Cost Containment Efforts, GAO-16-97: Published: Nov 10, 2015. Publicly Released: Nov 10, 2015. Financial Audit: Office of Financial Stability (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Fiscal Years 2015 and 2014 Financial Statements, GAO-16-147R: Published: Nov 10, 2015. Publicly Released: Nov 10, 2015. Foster Care: HHS Could Do… Continue Reading
EFF – NSA Ordered to Stop Collecting, Querying Plaintiffs’ Phone Records
EFF news release: “Affirming his previous ruling that the NSA’s telephone records collection program is unconstitutional, a federal judge ordered the NSA to cease collecting the telephone records of an individual and his business. The judge further ordered the NSA to segregate any records that have already been collected so that they are not reviewed… Continue Reading
New on LLRX – A Matter of Trust: Why the Time is Right to Adopt the Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (UELMA) in Florida
Via LLRX.com – A Matter of Trust: Why the Time is Right to Adopt the Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (UELMA) in Florida – In this article, Law Librarian Patricia Morgan brings our attention to a group of prominently related issues on electronic legal research whose application are critical for attorneys, librarians and courts. In… Continue Reading
